The BJP in Arunachal Pradesh will extend its support to the Peoples’ Party of Arunachal (PPA) Government led by Chief Minister Pema Khandu even as the party will take a decision on whether to join the Government or not in the forthcoming national executive of the saffron party to be held in Kerala this month.
On Friday last, the erstwhile Congress Government in Arunachal became a PPA Government after the 43 Congress legislators, including the Chief Minister, merged with the regional political party PPA. Two Independent candidates had also joined the PPA.
“As of now the BJP will extend its support to the PPA Government led by Chief Minister Pema Khandu. We are keeping the option of joining the Government open and a decision in this regard will be taken by the party leadership in New Delhi,” said convener of the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) and Assam Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma while addressing a Press conference in Itanagar on Sunday.
Sarma denied the reports of BJP’s involvement in engineering the defection in the Congress in Arunachal and said the decision to merge with the PPA was taken by Khandu and his colleagues in the Government and that the BJP or the NEDA came to know about this only after the merger.
He said that Khandu and some of NEDA leadership will go to New Delhi in October this year and is likely to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah. “NEDA was formed to bring in development to the North-East and formation of a NEDA Government in Arunachal will fast-track development in the Hill State,” said Sarma, adding that Chief Ministers of the four NEDA-ruled States are going to meet the Ambassadors of all South-East Asian countries in October to discuss trade and commerce as well as tourism potentials of the region.
State Chief Minister Pema Khandu said the decision to merge with the PPA came as the people of the State demanded a regional party-led Government in the State. “Although the MlAs won on Congress ticket in last elections, everyone one in the Government have been getting feedback from the local level that people wants a Government to be headed by a regional party. The people of the State were also impressed by the developmental works of the Modi Government at the Centre and his concern for the northeastern region,” said Khandu.
It may be mentioned here that the NEDA — the BJP led anti-Congress conglomeration — was formed in May this year after the BJP’s landslide victory in the Assam Assembly elections in April. The main focus of the NEDA is to free the northeastern States of the ‘misrule’ of the Congress and it has been trying to unite all the regional political parties in the region against the Congress.